It has been almost a month since the largest ground invasion in Europe since World War II began, and there is no great progress on the battlefield or at the negotiating table.
Russian forces seemed to be stuck outside the big cities in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance. Attacks on urban areas continued to sow destruction in different parts of the country.
The capital of Ukraine, Kiev, trembled on Wednesday morning from Russian shells that started fires in tall buildings and injured four people. Russian bombs destroyed a crucial bridge that connected the besieged city of Chernigov to the capital and allowed aid to arrive.
Artillery fire rang out in the suburbs of Kiev as Ukrainian forces fought bitter battles to repel the Russian invasion.
Western intelligence estimates indicate that Russian casualties are growing. But suffering is exacerbated in the besieged and ruined cities of Ukraine, where people struggle to survive with hardly any food, water, electricity or heat.
US President Joe Biden was scheduled to travel on Wednesday to discuss the war with NATO leaders.
WHAT IS THE SITUATION IN UKRAINIAN CITIES UNDER ATTACK?
The capital of Kiev continues to be targeted. Rounds of artillery and gunfire rocked the city on Wednesday, when they hit a shopping center and tall buildings in the Sviatoshyn and Shevchenko districts.
Four people were injured in the fires caused by the attacks, according to municipal authorities. Columns of smoke rose from the outskirts to the west as anti-aircraft sirens sounded.
Russian forces were shelling the ancient city of Chernigov in northern Ukraine, according to the regional governor on Wednesday, and destroyed a major bridge connecting the besieged city to Kiev.
The destroyed bridge was used to allow civilians to leave and humanitarian aid to arrive. Chernigov authorities said Tuesday that the city had no water or electricity and called the situation a humanitarian disaster.
On the western outskirts of the capital, Ukrainian forces were trying to counterattack the jammed Russian troops. The defenders succeeded in resuming the Makariv suburb on Tuesday, allowing them to recover a crucial highway and prevent Russia from surrounding Kiev from the northwest.
Some 460 areas of the surrounding suburbs of Kiev were without electricity, according to local authorities.
On Wednesday, heavy fighting also continued over the eastern Ukrainian locality of Izium, according to the Ukrainian president's office.
Russian navy ships were increasingly joining the attacks on the port city of Mariupol, according to Western intelligence analysis that mentioned about seven Russian ships in the area, including a minesweeper and landing ships.
Controlling Mariupol would give Russia a coveted land corridor to Crimea, which Moscow annexed eight years ago.
The United States has estimated that Russia has lost more than 10% of its original combat capability, including troops, tanks and other material. The Pentagon says that Russian forces have started to go on the offensive in areas of the country, such as the southern city of Kherson, which was captured at the start of the war.
The British Ministry of Defense on Wednesday described the war as “static” for the most part, as Russian forces attempt to reorganize before resuming a large-scale attack.
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN MARIUPOL?
Mariupol, a strategic city on the Sea of Azov, has become a symbol of the brutal destruction of war.
Some 100,000 people are still trapped in the city, according to the Ukrainian president, and are trying to survive without heat, food or clean water, and are subject to incessant Russian bombardments from sea and sky.
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said that 7,000 people had managed to flee in the last evacuation on Tuesday. He also accused the Russians of confiscating a humanitarian convoy attempting to bring urgently needed food and other supplies to the battered city, adding that Russian forces had detained the expedition's drivers.
His office warned that refugees from Mariupol were increasingly threatened by projectile waves.
Russian missiles have hit civilian buildings, such as a school and theater known for housing hundreds of people underground. The bodies are buried in mass graves.
Mariupol is now a “hell on Earth,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres.
Zelenskyy, for his part, called the situation “inhumane”.
Viktoria Totsen, 39, who arrived in a Polish border town on Tuesday after fleeing the city, said the city is “99% destroyed”.
WHAT HAVE YOU WITNESSED DIRECTLY OR CONFIRMED AP?
More than 3.5 million people have fled the war in Ukraine, according to the United Nations refugee agency, while the humanitarian situation worsens.
Ukrainians who fled the fighting spoke to The Associated Press in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, where thousands of people arrived and thousands more left to join a Ukrainian exodus to Poland and other countries.
Julia Krytskaa held back her tears at the Lviv train station as she described the scene she had left behind in Mariupol.
“People don't have water, they drink water that isn't even what would be used for technical issues,” he said. “There is no one who can be asked for help.”
In the coastal city of Odessa, street musicians played Tuesday under clear skies on streets dotted with barricades, as couples tearfully parted at the station and residents prepared for what they feared would be an escalation in the Russian offensive.
A bittersweet atmosphere reigned in the city, known as the Pearl of the Black Sea, with the image of sandbags and security forces mixed with the romantic jazzy coming out of the speakers at the train station.
“I can't understand what happened,” said Igor Topsi, a 56-year-old percussionist who has been playing on the streets of Odessa for three decades.
HOW DOES THE WORLD RESPOND TO WAR?
President Biden was on his way to Brussels on Wednesday to meet with key allies, an effort to stop the spiral from conflict to an even greater catastrophe.
Biden was expected to announce new sanctions on Russia and coordinate more military assistance for Ukraine. It also works on long-term efforts to boost defenses in Eastern Europe and reduce the continent's dependence on Russian oil and gas, according to the White House.
Several international investigations are under way into possible war crimes and other violations. The Swiss Attorney General's Office said it had begun collecting evidence from Ukrainian refugees in an effort to expose possible crimes and non-compliance with sanctions resulting from the conflict.
On Wednesday, the United Nations was adopting three resolutions on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, each reflecting the bitter differences in the agency.
A resolution backed by Ukraine and the West held Russia responsible for the humanitarian crisis. A second defended by South Africa did not mention Russia at all. A Russian Security Council resolution on the war made no reference to its invasion.
The secret services in Poland, the country that has received most of the Ukrainian refugees, said it was trying to expel 45 agents of the Russian secret service and their collaborators, who had enjoyed diplomatic documentation to stay in the country.